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In this next blog-video, Richard Piske, co-founder of The Staffing Cooperative discusses with his partner Dave Reiss, the focus and attitude he maintained to grow Olsten Staffing throughout every economic period of the 80s and 90s.  

This conversation was held before staffing executives and staffing professionals at AST’s 2009 Users Group in Jersey City. AST (http://www.astusa.com) has been providing staffing software solutions to the staffing industry since 1985.

As talked about in this blog-video, you can sum up Richard’s focus with two words, “market share”.  Have you defined your market?  What is your share of your staffing market and how are you planning on increasing your piece of the pie?  Ask Dave and Richard how you can be measuring and increasing your market share at Market Share ?, or post your questions and comments directly on this blog-video post below.  We’ll be sure to respond.

Watch the previous two blog-videos of Richard and Dave’s conversation, “What an “A” Player in the Staffing Industry Looks Like”

Click-in next week for “What’s different about this recession?”

Everett Reiss
Business Relationships Development
The Staffing Cooperative
Check me out on Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/evreiss
Check us out on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/StaffingCo_op

How are you as a staffing company marketing yourself to your clients and prospects?  Have you considered casting yourself as the staffing solution to help businesses get a jump on preparing for the economic upturn?  It’s going to happen, it’s happened every time before, and there are already signs of recovery.  Check out these staffing industry statistics:

·         The rate of temporary job loss is decelerating from the beginning of the year through April according to SI Analysts’ Contingent Blog.

·         According to California’s Employment Development Department, California’s unemployment rates decreased from 11.2% to 11% while employment increased in April.  California is traditionally a bellwether state as far as economic recovery is concerned.

·         The ASA staffing index has stabilized, remaining flat since February and showed a slight increase in the beginning of May (http://www.americanstaffing.net/statistics/staffing_index.cfm).

Elaine Balady, co-owner of The Assurance Group and Director of Strategic Relationships for The Staffing Cooperative specializes in forming close partnerships with staffing buyers describes how we, as staffing professionals, can “assist [staffing buyers] in maintaining their competitiveness in a difficult economy. For example, we can assist in staffing level assessments and in providing tools for re-evaluating current staff.”

Here are some additional ways you should be marketing your staffing services and looking to partner with potential staffing buyers:

·         Staffing businesses to their strengths:  Many companies have cut staff in all areas including employees who directly support their core-competencies and strengths.  Businesses need to get the people with the right skills and experience in these positions again, but are still hesitant to add employees.  This is the perfect entrée for you as a staffing provider to come into a business and help them identify the gaps in talent that they need to fill for the recovery and then provide that talent on a contingency basis.

·         Tightening up HR processes and compliance issues: As things pick up, focus quickly shifts to simply keeping up with demand.  While we’re still on the threshold of recovery, now’s the time for businesses with the help of proactive staffing companies to develop maximum efficiencies in managing their human resources.

·         Investing in and developing staff: In order to prepare your clients and prospects to be at the top of their game for the recovery, you as a staffing company could repackage the same training and development programs you use for your own candidates and offer it to them.  If you have a very effective candidate development program for customer service, then offer a similar program to the customer service departments of your clients and prospects.

Now it’s your turn to let us know of some other ways you are helping your clients prepare for economic recovery.

Everett Reiss

Business Relationships Development
The Staffing Cooperative
Check me out on Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/evreiss
Check us out on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/StaffingCo_op

You’ve probably seen a few hundred if not thousands of cars over the past few days and hardly took note of them unless one cut you off, flipped you off, or was driven head-first into the ground.  That’s what’s so attention-grabbing about the Cadillac Ranch (http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2220) in Amarillo, TX, which has become a national attraction for its rows of junkyard Caddies planted into the ground front-first with their rear two-thirds protruding into the air.

Let’s do the same with some “everyday” staffing industry numbers - flip ‘em around, upside down and on their side and see what eye-catching results we come up with.

• Exhibit A: In the beginning of March, Staffing Industry Analysts reported that the temporary staffing market was down 22.7% over the last twelve months – ouch, depressing.  But wait, let’s flip it and look at the 77.3% of the remaining staffing market that’s still whispering “take me, please capture me!”

• Exhibit B: Recently, I spoke with a staffing company based in Cleveland who estimated they had 1% of the Ohio staffing market. Let’s say your staffing business is in a similar situation with a 1% share of its staffing market – wow, that’s just a drop in the bucket. You know what to do; that’s right, let’s flip it and think how you’re going to take a significant bite out of the 99% you don’t have of the remaining 77.3% of the staffing market.

• Exhibit C: Take 5%, for example; that’s the percent of the US workforce that temporary labor accounts for ( http://www.articlesworld.com/how-temp-agencies-has-evolved/ ). Push the 5% aside and focus on the remaining 95% of US jobs as fertile land waiting on innovators of staffing solutions to come along and start sowing seeds. Much of this land has been lying dormant for temporary staffing agencies to return to and surpass their peak share of the workforce, which reached 10.8% early 1980s ( http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123680920862100627.html).

Think about some other numbers, figures, or staffing metrics you’ve been looking at and try flipping them upside down – stand on your head if you have to!  Please comment about some new discoveries you’re making as you look at your staffing business and potential market differently.  Also, contact The Staffing Cooperative to take advantage of the tools, approaches, and resources we offer to help you see real opportunity, set goals and benchmarks, and gain market share and step into new markets.